Logarithmic
by Meeerf aka AllumaNoir
Summary: My overflow file of drabbles and snippets. Some fit the Exponential universe, others don't. Individual posts range from K to M.
1. New Year's Fireworks

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hiiiiiiii! MEEERF IS NOT DEAD**. I am working on something… big… in this fandom, but I have some scraps for your FF7R hype!

Untitled for now, because the title of this collection is a SPOILER.

Thanks to my friends on the Final Heaven Discord Server – much of this collection was written for their requests.

ENJOY!

**NEW YEAR'S FIREWORKS**

_**Written in real time NYE 2020**_

All of Edge was waiting in anticipation. For some, this would be the first time they had ever seen fireworks. Denzel thought he might have seen some when he was small, but he wasn't sure; for Marlene, it was the first time for certain. They were only happening in Edge due to an "anonymous benefactor", which was the understood code for "Rufus ShinRa".

The children were off with Barret. They had left Tifa and Cloud behind with the casual nonchalance of children, so eager to get to the fun that they forgot who they were leaving alone. Not that either of the two minded.

Tifa had only ever seen fireworks once before, at the Gold Saucer, a lonely evening with her thoughts of unrequited love. Thoughts she now understood were wrong, oh so wrong. And neither was she alone.

Cloud's arm was wrapped around her. She knew it was on his mind, though, and she wished he would just get it out, get over the stumbling block impeding this night.

"Just say it, Cloud," she prodded him gently. "It's okay."

He took a deep breath, bracing to say uncomfortable words, even though they both knew what was there. "I wish Aerith didn't have to die on this day," he finally said.

Tifa knew. Just hours away from another year of her life... but that was three years away now. Years that she wished her friend could have spent with them, but it was not to be.

"Cloud," she asked cautiously. "Don't you think... I think maybe today, instead of mourning her death, we could celebrate it instead?"

He looked towards her, part saddened, part just plain confused. "Don't you get it?" she asked him. "What I've been telling you all along. The only way to honor her life - and Zack's - is to keep living."

He looked at her seriously. "I don't understand. No completely. But I think I'm starting to." His left hand took hers, gently fingering the silver ring that bore his mark, his accidental token of love for her. His right hand caressed the side of her face. "This is the part I understand."

He kissed her, softly, deeper, and as Tifa heard midnight strike, the first sparks lit above her. But the brightest sparks were those right with her, in bright blue eyes and strong arms wrapped around her.

He held her close, they watching fireworks for the first time together. But there would be many more. She knew that now.

The finale burst, and then the last lights faded into black darkness, stars visible now that the Mako reactors no longer drowned them out. They locked eyes. "It's a new year," she whispered to him.

"Then let's give it a proper beginning." Grip tightening on her hand, she let him lead her back through the doors of Seventh Heaven. Their home.

HAPPY NEW ERA 20!


	2. Chocobos and Potatoes

**CHOCOBOS AND POTATOES**

_**Pure fluff written for Caramel van Gogh**_

"Why did the hero cross the road?"

"Why are you TALKING so LOUD, Cloud?" moaned one of the other kids.

He knew. Because if he had talked normally, Tifa, even though only a few feet away, might not have heard him! Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that he had got her attention.

She was listening.

"To avenge the chocobo that didn't make it!" he announced triumphantly, even louder than before.

"That's AWFUL!" said the other kid. Snickers from the group behind him. They were laughing at him, Cloud knew, but he didn't care. They were just other kids, not friends. He didn't have friends. He didn't WANT friends, really, except -

He tried to pretend he wasn't looking, but he could see anyway. She was snickering into her hand, shaking slightly, and he panicked - Oh no, she's laughing at me too, she thinks I'm stupid -

\- and Tifa pulled her hand away from her mouth, laughing bright, clear, and open, and then she snorted - actually SNORTED -

_She did! She liked my joke!_

After a minute, her laughter died down, but just for a second, her eyes smiled into his before she walked away.

"- the chocobo that didn't make it!"

Grains from around the table, Cid laughing as he pounded the table with his fist. "You've got to be kidding, Cloud. That was so fucking lame. Don't you know any better jokes?"

Not really, thought Cloud. "Denzel liked it," he said defensively.

"Denzel is TEN. He thinks potty jokes are funny," Barret replied, wiping tears from his eyes with his new prosthetic hand.

"Well, _**I**_ liked it," objected Yuffie.

"Exactly," said Barret.

Cloud suddenly realized that there was one voice he couldn't hear laughing. Tifa.

She'd gone back for more drinks, but they were only a table away, and as drunk and as loud as they were being, she couldn't have helped but heard. Cloud was suddenly mortified. She must be so embarrassed, she can't even look at me -

He turned around.

He was wrong on both counts.

She was t laughing, but there was a warm, tender smile on her face.

She was looking right at him.

And her eyes were full of love.


	3. A Certain Type

**A CERTAIN TYPE**

_**M-ish rating. Because Cloud's dress really DOES look like a Victorian governess…**_

Cloud looked in disgust at the giant, red, pimply ass before him. Don Corneo wiggled his butt in anticipation.

When he had seen Tifa in her very, uh, APPEALING dress, Cloud had been sure he was going to have to fight his way too her anyway, despite Aerith's plan. Then, once HE had been the one chosen, Cloud had been prepared to fend off skeevy touches and kisses.

Now, it had become clear to him what it meant that the Don had a certain "taste".

And oh, how they might have been laughing when they dressed him at the Honeybee Inn...

"Please, Miss Cloud," whined the Don. "I've been such a naughty boy. Please, I need you to spank me. First with your hand, then with that cane..."

Cloud sighed. The Don was in for a surprise when he got spammed with SOLDIER strength.

It's for Tifa, he reminded himself, as he lifted his arm...


	4. Heroes

**HEROES**

_**Zack character study**_

Zack Fair wanted to be a hero.

He had that in mind when he fled his village at age thirteen, thinking of the stories of the great Sephiroth that had already traveled all over the world, encouraging boys like him everywhere to be like him. But he knew he was good. He knew he would be better than them.

He was so excited that he fled his village with barely a goodbye to his parents and friends, looking only forward towards Midgar.

And when he got there, he signed up with the ShinRa army.

Bu heroes did not come out of the army. Heroes were SOLDIERs, and Zack made sure he was noticed. Didn't care who he stepped on the way in his excitement, only concerned for himself. Soon enough, he was a SOLDIER Third class, and he was on his way.

And he started to see those who his heroes had been. The great Sephiroth, up close, or closer at least. Not only that, but the other Firsts, and whispers told him they were heroes too, but in their own way. Less famous, less glamorous perhaps, but still their names were spoken in reverential whispers among the lower SOLDIER ranks.

Zack listened, and learned. He'd passed the tests for Third, no sweat; and the tests for Second, a little harder, but he made it. And that's when Angeal first approached him.

Angeal was not a hero like Sephiroth. Nor an upstart like Genesis. Angeal told him a hero was made of dreams and honor, and Zack did not at first understand, but he adored his mentor and friend, and despite himself, he listened.

He must have been doing something right, because Angeal recommended him for first .First, like Genesis and Sephiroth. Of course, by that time, Genesis was gone missing, no longer a hero but a rogue, and Zack was to be sent out with Angeal to hunt for him.

Supervised. Inspected. Assessed for the next step.

Zack was determined not to fail.

And his mission succeeded…but at the end, his mentor was gone. Vanished. And Zack was left bereft, with all Angeal's talk of hopes and dreams left behind, nothing to do but wonder.

Time went by. He saw more friends fall, disappear. He started to wonder about the dreams that had carried him so far, the boyish dreams that had carried him to Midgar, the matured dreams that his mentor had directed him towards.

And when he was given First, it was a bitter pill to swallow, knowing he was now out on that limb alone.

He met Angeal alone, an angel claiming he was a monster, and Zack wondered what had ever happened to dreams and honor, as he tumbled to the ground below.

And there was his angel to greet him… and now he had a new dream, that perhaps he had found someone to be a hero for.

Was that the truth? Not fame and fortune, not dreams and honor, but perhaps something simple and special, close to the heart?

She was his new dream, his new reason. He wanted to be what she need end to be. A hero. For HER. Someone who could care for her and protect her.

He had no idea then what he would need to protect her from.

And then that day he met Angeal again, and his mentor whispered to him, _kill me now, _and he did, leaving the mark of a scar to remind him every time he looked in the mirror.

He wondered if there was any honor in what he had done.

But there she was, as he cried his heart out, she close to him, letting him know… heroes could cry too.

He loved her, he really did. And with that… he knew if he could be a hero to just one woman, it would be more than enough.

He met Cloud, a young man as innocent as he once had been, the same dreams, and Zack wanted to tell him how easily those dreams could become tainted, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to crush that younger man's innocence quite so soon. It reminded him of an earlier time, a hopeful time where he believed there was a simple way to be a hero, something he had it in him.

Now, not even sure what "it" was.

Only Sephiroth was left, the last hero standing, disillusioned himself, and Zack wondered more and more what he had signed on for with ShinRa, where its heroes wanted only to get away.

Soon enough, he was wanting to get away himself.

He wanted just HER. Just this one last mission… and perhaps he could have a life with her. Live with her .Protect her. If he could do that within ShinRa – if not - maybe he would leave ShinRa as well.

The thought didn't bother him as much as it once might have.

_This is the last mission,_ he told himself. _The last time I will put ShinRa above what really matters to me._

But the mission dissolved in fire and pain, and dreams and honor came to nothing bleeding out on the floor of the reactor.

He came to. He and Cloud, saved by immersion is Mako, but kept captive afterwards. Cloud, the young bright-eyed innocent, now catatonic and destroyed, and Zack cursed to the skies the day he had joined ShinRa, the day he had sold his soul to an entity that would do this to its own.

He was no hero. He had guilt and shame riding on his shoulders, but he would not let the burden grow.

He would not leave Cloud behind.

He knew he could have made it without Cloud, knew it deep down, but somehow the idea never truly surged to consciousness. Never an option.

He knew now, he had never been any kind of hero, with the sins he committed in ShinRa's name, blinded by his own foolish pictreures of fame and fortune.

He could only hope to pay some of that debt back.

He dragged his friend around the world, his never-changing state, half alive but mostly dead, a constant reminder of the way he had sold his soul.

But he had to get back to the only other one ever worth living for.

Then he learned the truth – _four years – _and realized all his dreams of heroism had earned him no loyalty, no freedom. Only one thing could do that, and that was being steadfast and true.

He was close, so close to her, when they found him, their once-bright hero now wanted meat.

He hid Cloud, and as he turned away, the young man broke from the fog to reach for him, and Zack, with a broken heart, made his best choice and walked away.

The price of freedom, punished for the ways he had been deceived, hunted down on a broken cliff, no hero but fighting for his life until collapse, until his last spark was taken as he was grounded like a wounded beast, a cartridge of bullets emptied into the single spark of his strength to ensure he would never get up again.

But there was hope.

Cloud, his last chance for redemption.

Cloud, crawling forward, Zack hearing him struggling through the mud – but after all this time, he was trying, he was trying.

And Cloud's face came into view, battered and scared but ALIVE – and somehow, that made it all worth it.

Cloud was the redemption for his sins.

Cloud was his living legacy.

Cloud would survive…

...and perhaps be a hero for them both.

Cloud took his sword, and the emptiness heard his scream as the sky reached for Zack… and with regrets for her who he never reached, he let go.

But Cloud lived, oh he LIVED, the one thing in his life he knew for sure he had done.

And from the beyond, he watched his young friend struggle through the wasteland, under the weight of Zack's huge sword.

Zack's chances were done.

But Cloud's were not.

And perhaps, he had let his young friend have his chance to be a hero.

And in the end, he finally realized, that was the only thing that was true, to protect and care and love, and that was what made a hero.

Perhaps with this last act, he finally understood.

Soul breaking free from body, he asked the Lifestream itself.

_Do you think I finally became a hero?_


	5. I Don't Know About This, part 1

**I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THIS**

_**AU angst to a random late night prompt from Caramel van Gogh**_

"I don't know about this," she said as softly as she could muster. "I don't know what to make of this."

She'd said it a hundred times before, every time they met. But he couldn't blame her for that. It had been time after time he'd sworn, _this time he would do it,_ but he could barely count how long he had been ignorantly shying away, callously disregarding her feelings for the safety of another.

He needed her to understand that it was never his intention to do that, not to _her, _but deep down he knew he was still denying the fact that she was important.

If not already more.

He wanted more…

"It's not so easy," he told her instead. The coward's way out.

She shook her head. "It's time to say goodbye."

THAT, she'd never said. It was a punch to the gut. "Please… I need you…" His words were pathetic, even to himself. "Stay…"

Tifa only sighed. "No, Cloud, it's for the best. This is… never going to make us happy. Not the way we've been doing this. I just want you to be happy… and I don't think I can give that to you." She looked deep into his eyes, before pulling him into a long kiss, and he lost himself, the world falling away when he was with her in a way it never did with his wife.

"Don't you say that," he begged when they broke away. "Not you."

_I'll do it. I'll break away. I don't want to be without you…_

But she only shook her head, and somehow Cloud was glued to the floor as she went through the door without a glance back.

Of course, she was a fool, she had been from the start.

But how could you stop what you were feeling? It had been there from that first moment, when their eyes met across a crowded room – something she'd thought the silly stuff of stories, until it happened to her.

It had been that silly banquet. He'd needed a date, and even though it had been two years since she and Reeve had broken up, they were still on very good terms, and well… it was an important evening for him. Besides, Reeve was always the perfect escort, a consummate gentleman. Charming, intelligent, sensitive…

In short, the perfect man. She sincerely hoped he would find a woman worthy of him someday – he certainly deserved to be happy. But in the end, she simply couldn't deny it – she didn't love him. Felt safe with, admired, even cared for – but there was that one thing missing, that spark of – _imperfection_, perhaps? that kept her from looking forward to years upon years spent by his side.

She was laughing with Reeve in jovial familiarity when she turned, and –

Him.

Striking blue eyes, wild sunshine hair so ridiculously at odds with the formal tuxedo, and there was an electric crackle in the air, so sharp she could almost taste the residue, as they… just… stared.

And her feet were just getting ready to take that first step forward when she saw _her_, ice-queen elegance, come up to him as if sensing her territory had been threatened, a touch on his shoulder drawing him obediently away.

Compromises were the meat of life.

That was what Cloud had always been taught. You aren't going to get your wildest dreams buddy. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and you'd better be prepared to face reality.

What chances did he have, a kid from the slums, in a city where education and opportunity passed from the wealthy to their children? Aristocracy, that pretended it wasn't, with Rufus ShinRa the uncrowned king.

Scarlet was a distant cousin. Still high up the totem pole, still a party to their wealth and power. And when she one day took notice of a pretty younger man sweating his way through another menial construction job – another peon of the empire – Cloud figured it was his ticket out.

And it was, but at a cost. She was fifteen years older, and always the one in control. Cloud realized with time he had traded insecurity for subservience, but he rationalized it away a hundred times. _Women did it all the time. He had nowhere else to go. She'd find a way to keep him from getting away or ruin him wherever he went. Did he really want to toil and sweat his life away? He was the upper crust now, he had it all and he deserved it._

But the biggest lie of all he told himself, was that he could forego love.

The illusion was shattered by a pair of wine-dark eyes, the color of the dress she wore that night. Her startled gaze mirroring his own, when for the first time in his life, he saw, _felt_, something he needed so badly… that in that instant, he'd been ready to give up anything he did or could have had to keep the moment.

But before he could make that choice, _she_ came up behind him, her casually draped arm a chokehold of a leash.

Tifa had returned to tending bar after the breakup. Reeve had assured her that she could keep her position even after she broke up with him, they would maintain professionalism, was money the issue? And she had no doubt he would keep his word.

But it was all part of the same. She'd thought somehow being a secretary above the plate would be a better situation. But she found she was less suited to champagne tastes than tequila dreams, and that the dirty, grungy slums were home in a way the plate could never be.

He was hurt, but they'd achieved a compromise that let Tifa go her way while still letting Reeve help her the way he wanted to. Reeve Tuesti, the famed philanthropist, director of nonprofit services all over Midgar – he could never stop giving. Tifa had to insist that it was a _loan_, and they'd gone down to the bank together, filled out paperwork, put their signatures on a contract that let her buy Seventh Heaven.

A loan she planned to pay back, every gil. She couldn't respect herself if she did not.

It was her pride and joy, after all. Because it was _hers_.

She loved the people who came in, people who came not to be seen but to see _her._ She knew their lives, and cared, and they hers as well. People making up a life that riches never could substitute for.

Then one day, a certain person came in.

He had the nerve to order a Midgarden. A _Midgarden!_ A pretentious drink served to the snobs of a pretentious city. She wanted to tell him people in the slums drank their whiskey straight and hard, but she was a businesswoman, so she coolly mixed his cocktail, all the while thinking.

What had brought him there?

She realized much later she had never thought to ask _how _he had found her. If she had, she might have answered the other question as well.

She put the drink in front of him, and their eyes clicked together; she found herself unable to break away. She hadn't noticed his hand slipping the money into her palm, and when she tried to pull away to get his changed, he gripped her hand tightly.

Time froze for the longest moment.

He opened his mouth, and she wondered he was going to say.

Shouts from the other end of the bar broke their concentration, and she awkwardly mumbled apologies, ducking her head away. But even as duty called, he stayed, and watched.

And he was the last customer in the bar at the end.

"We're closing," she told him, unsure what else to do.

He just stared at her some more, and she wondered if she was going to have to escort him out. She walked out from behind the bar. "Time's up," she swallowed.

He stood, but made no move towards the door. "I'm… Cloud," he finally replied, with the awkwardness of a boy rather than a man.

She looked at him, surprised, and suddenly she couldn't bear to push him out. "T-Tifa," she stumbled over her own name.

A long moment. He stretched one arm forward, and –

-his hands were in her hair and his mouth on hers, and she was surprised for only a moment before she found herself responding eagerly, feverishly, and then she was the one leading HIM, heading towards the back stairs –

_**TO BE CONTINUED**_


	6. Lifetimes and Lifelines

**TIMES & LINES**

_**Cloti slices of life…. Fits the Exponential universe, but also works as a summary**_

She sees it every day.

One thing after another. The dishes need washing. The house needs cleaning. The kids need watching.

And he just looks at her in his solitary, mournful way.

And then he DOES it all.

It's not a glamorous life she gives him. They already saved the world - where do you go after that?

And it's not any easier, either.

Sometimes, she wonders, would the flower girl have made it easier?

Late at night, she's hot under his touch. Let's him make her gasp and pant. Willingly. Even when she's shy, she lets herself go for him.

Because it lets him know she cares.

She'd had a home once.

It wasn't with him.

But now, underneath a chain-mail roof, love sometimes sings like flowers.

She dreams.

Of a time long ago when she dreamed of heroes. Never knowing, never understanding.

Heroes died.

Cloud still lived.

He took out the trash, got the mail. Handed her the Gil to pay their bills. Never complaining.

Grateful as she for the things that made a life.

Marlene and Denzel ask sometimes.

_Do you love each other?_

How could she explain it's all the more true for the grit?

His kisses are so soft.

Things you _can't _break, but are scared to anyway.

Behind a broken window, the two of them shut in.

And in those rare moments, a little world of only the two of them - and that's how she knows time.

He's there.

He wakes before her. But if he can, he's there to tuck her in.

And in between _don't forget your lunch _and _it was busy tonight_

they

are

just

there.

Love kisses her with heartbreak, teases her with dreams.

But life does not disappoint.

And in tumbled-down weeds of never-land, the truest light burns not brightest, but most constant.

And when he looks her in the eyes -

her soul opens, breathes free

Only doubt I'd left behind.

She pays him back with her enjoyment. Sometimes, it's hard, but she makes it happen.

He doesn't dance, but one day in the courtyard, he asks _dance with me._

And she doesn't mind one bit because if he can ask her to dance, she can ask him to do anything - kill a madman, scale a mountain.

Steal her heart.

Through the years waning fast and he never leaves.

_I'll never leave again, _he said.

He never did.

Building together of themselves, moving forward into history.

"Always" never comes too soon.


End file.
